- Polestar plans on diversifying its distribution centers, allowing new car stock to reach dealerships sooner.
- The Polestar 2 is nearly sold out for this year, and with tariffs hitting it sales may slow down.
- Polestar plans for the 3 and 4 to make up the majority of its future sales.
Polestar has been in rough straits for a short while now. The 100% tariff has basically put the kibosh on its strongest seller, the Polestar 2. The Polestar 3 and Polestar 4 are only just now getting out of the gate here. But strong words and a slight change of plans from Polestar’s new North American head, Anders Gustafsson, suggests that the brand is trying to build a brighter future.
This week, Polestar officially launched a new showroom in Columbus, Ohio. That’s not necessarily noteworthy in itself. The brand has been open about its plans to grow its retail network. However, the launch also brought a visit from Gustafsson. I took the opportunity to sit down and chat with him about what's next for the brand. One thing’s for sure: Polestar wants more inventory at its stores.
Gustafsson wants to improve how quickly and how often cars are delivered to Polestar stores. Gustafsson said that historically, Polestar’s stock came from one central location in the U.S. and then was doled out to dealerships from there. This was less than ideal for customers who didn’t want to wait for a car. He explained that in some instances, a unit in the brand’s California logistic holding location could take four to five weeks to reach the East Coast. That’s not great for Americans, who are famously impatient car buyers. Buyers in Europe or Asia may be willing to wait a few weeks for the exact car they want, but Gustafsson said that Americans are way different than Europeans.
Polestar is taking new steps to ensure its stores consistently carry inventory. Part of that is by creating new logistics hubs and storing more cars on retailer lots. Gustafsson’s idea is that customers should be able to touch and see the specific unit they’ll buy, which means the lot has to have more product on hand.
“Before, the cars would be in one central space, like Los Angeles. But now the milk is outside your house before you need to find a cow,” Gustafsson told InsideEVs.
Gustaffson also wants to take advantage of its close relationship to its more traditional partner, Volvo, which is also owned by Polestar parent Geely. I asked Gustafsson about some concerns I’ve had with other startups like Lucid and Rivian, which have struggled to expand their geographic reach. The Columbus metropolitan area is one of the wealthiest parts of Ohio, for instance, but there are no close-by stores to see models from either brand, let alone purchase one off the lot that day. Polestar wants to cast a wider net. Even though it uses a factory store model, Gustaffson sees the company's connection to Volvo as a key advantage for service and support.
The Columbus Polestar location is fairly spacious, and it's connected to a service department with technicians that are trained explicitly on Polestar vehicles. A Polestar customer won’t have to go to more than one place for sales and service. But Polestar's supply chain for parts and pipeline for technicians benefits from the brand's close connection to Volvo.
“Everything we have—parts, logistics, Volvo is doing that for us. We have technicians, and we use Volvo's tech schools [and] our own Polestar tech schools, to educate technicians,” said Gustafsson.
This is all built out to support the launches of its two new models: the Polestar 3 and Polestar 4. The brand expects the two cars to be big hits for the United States. At a base price of about $56,000, the rear-windowless Polestar 4 is likely to be the brand’s volume seller when it officially goes on sale in March 2025. The first handful of Polestar 3 crossovers made in South Carolina are already coming off the assembly line.
Of course, the 100% tariff on EVs shipped in from China is an unavoidable topic of conversation. Polestar's current volume product, the Polestar 2, is built in China, so it can no longer carry the brand alone. Polestar will try to capitalize on its small but growing sales momentum, while pivoting focus from its EV sedan to two new, untested SUVs that are far more expensive. Gustafsson doesn’t necessarily see that as a challenge.
“Mr. [Håkan] Samuelsson, former CEO of Volvo Cars, always said that too [many] resources make you less innovative and interesting,” said Gustafsson. “[Polestar] needs to be extremely focused on production capacity and our suppliers, and be more sales effective and utilize this fantastic [Volvo and Polestar] network,” he continued.
Gustafsson said that other startup EV brands are relative teenagers with no footprint. Leaning on its partner, Volvo, will be key to getting the brand more in the limelight, and ensuring its drivers and owners are satisfied. For Polestar, that means really focusing on getting the 3 and soon the 4 into the hands of drivers.
The Polestar 2, meanwhile, will likely see sales decline. While Gustafsson said that the Polestar 2 is already nearly sold out for the year, it will naturally end up taking a back seat to the sales of the Polestar 3 and 4. The company would rather focus on its new SUVs than its older, tariff-impacted sedan. But Gustafsson says he has no immediate plan to discontinue the Polestar 2.
Will this strategy work out for Polestar? We’ll just have to wait and see.
Contact the author: kevin.williams@insideevs.com
